This book has grown out of numerous conversations with scholars across the humanities and social sciences. The last decade or so has transformed diplomatic history into a richly speculative transdisciplinary investigation. Throughout that period I have been inspired, taught, admonished, and encouraged by my friends and colleagues in the vanguard of this enterprise, including Douglas Biow, Joanna Craigwood, Paul Dover, Timothy Hampton, Jan Hennings, Mark Netzloff, Jane O. New- man, Toby Osborne, Diego Pirillo, Jason Powell, William Rossiter, Linda Shenk, and Tracey Sowerby. They rank among the most astute readers and listeners any scholar could desire. I have also profited from my long asso- ciation with historians and literary critics working on European monarchy, and especially on queenship, such as Charles Beem, Ilona Bell, Anna Berto- let, Denis Crouzet, Susan Doran, Helen Hackett, Thomas Herron, Carole Levin, Glenn Richardson, and Donald Stump. They will recognize imme- diately how much this book owes to their collective reflections on the marriage negotiations of Elizabeth I. I am also grateful to several other scholars of premodern history and literature for their friendship and kind support, including Colin Burrow, Eric Carlson, Patrick Cheney, Curtis Perry, Charles Ross, Susan Shapiro, Debora Shuger, James Simpson, and William Kennedy.